My greatest hitsin Product

Devika Nhendanmadath | Product leader, AI & data platforms | Boulder, CO

Hi, I'm Devika ✌ I build AI-powered, data-first products people love.

Read the journey ▶Lok&Key case study
✳ 0 to 1 builder♪ Music nerd✦ Data first♥ Customer obsessed
Devika Nhendanmadath, portrait by a mountain lake
Roadmapping♥AI Platforms♥Neural Haptics♥Customer Discovery♥Experimentation♥Lifecycle Growth♥Two-sided Marketplaces♥Analytics♥GTM Strategy♥UX Research♥Roadmapping♥AI Platforms♥Neural Haptics♥Customer Discovery♥Experimentation♥Lifecycle Growth♥Two-sided Marketplaces♥Analytics♥GTM Strategy♥UX Research♥

Liner notes

Engineering roots, customer instincts, metrics that move.

I have spent 4+ years orchestrating cross-functional squads to deliver AI-powered, data-first platforms, from an AI CRM for B2B commerce to lifecycle growth engines reaching 100,000+ learners. A Computer Science degree keeps me fluent with the teams I build alongside, and a STEM Master's in Project Management keeps delivery disciplined at scale.

The journey

Five chapters, one throughline: build things people love.

From a first internship in Bengaluru to a 0 to 1 wearable in Boulder, every role added a new instrument to the band.

  1. Chapter 05Mar 2026 to Present

    Product Support Specialist

    Afference · Boulder, USA

    The latest chapter: being the voice of the customer for a wearable that does not exist anywhere else yet.

    • Act as voice of the customer for a 0 to 1 neural haptic wearable, running product demos and troubleshooting to guide early users and feeding firsthand insights back to product and engineering.
    • Lead customer discovery through user interviews and market research, translating pain points into user stories and product requirements that inform roadmap prioritization.
    • Own user acceptance testing (UAT) for the demo app, validating features against requirements and documenting defects to close the loop with engineering.
    • Built the end to end support lifecycle (intake, triage, escalation, resolution), partnering cross functionally to drive continuous product improvement.
  2. Chapter 04Aug 2025 to Feb 2026

    Assistant Program Manager

    Better Direct · Phoenix, USA

    The chapter where AI stopped being a buzzword and became a CRM, a chatbot, and a dashboard that sales actually used.

    • Directed the redesign and relaunch of the corporate website with an integrated AI chatbot handling 200+ customer interactions, lifting qualified leads 20% within a month.
    • Led design and rollout of a proprietary AI-powered CRM platform, cutting manual sales effort by 40% and quote turnaround by 30% via automated validation and approvals.
    • Shipped an insights dashboard surfacing top-performing product lines and underperforming regions to focus sales strategy.
    • Built a gamification dashboard for contract-based sales achievements, raising incentive program participation 25%.
  3. Chapter 03Jan 2024 to Jun 2024

    Product Manager Co-op

    Municipal Police Training Committee (MPTC) · Boston, USA

    The public sector chapter: proving that even a $1M procurement process can feel like a modern product.

    • Spearheaded digital transformation with an Airtable-based procurement requisition system optimizing $1M+ in transactions.
    • Used MySQL for advanced analysis and reporting, delivering insights that supported budget planning and fiscal oversight.
  4. Chapter 02Jun 2020 to Dec 2022

    Associate Product Manager

    Great Learning · Bengaluru, India

    The growth chapter: 100,000 users, 200 interviews, and a lifecycle engine that turned into $2M of new revenue.

    • Integrated Drift's AI chatbot across web, iOS, and Android for 100,000+ users, driving 25% higher course engagement and 15% higher conversions.
    • Ran an experimentation program (A/B testing, statistical evaluation, feedback loops) that lifted app store rating to 4.8 and passed 100,000 downloads.
    • Led 200+ user interviews, personas, and journey mapping that cut user drop-off 30%.
    • Designed a lifecycle engine with SendGrid and behavioral analytics: +20% engagement, 10% lower churn.
    • Executed a Mixpanel and Hotjar driven GTM strategy improving sales performance 32% and generating $2M in new revenue in eight months.
  5. Chapter 01Dec 2019 to May 2020

    Product Manager Intern

    Unacademy · Bengaluru, India

    The first chapter: an internship where GTM strategy stopped being theory and started moving numbers.

    • Defined GTM strategies for online and offline campaigns using Google Analytics and Salesforce, increasing sales 30%.
    • Built competitive intelligence and performance measurement frameworks guiding product investment decisions.

The title track

Lok&Key

A roommate and room-rental marketplace. Product strategy, roadmap, and web product design.

Overview

Lok&Key is a two-sided marketplace connecting people searching for a room, the Hunters, with people renting one out, the Listers. The goal is to make finding a compatible living situation feel less like scrolling endless listings and more like being matched with the right place and the right person to live with.

I led the product definition: turning a rough idea and a couple of reference products into a phased, buildable roadmap, a defined data model, and a plan for the web experience.

The problem

Finding a room or a roommate online is fragmented and low-trust. Existing platforms solve one half of the equation: they list rooms without any sense of whether you would get along with the people there, or they focus on people without surfacing real inventory. Renters waste time on incompatible listings and listers field messages from people who were never a fit. The opportunity is a marketplace where compatibility and trust are first-class features, not afterthoughts.

Lok&Key marketplace home screen with room search
Lok&Key home screen: search-first discovery, no account required to browse.

My role

  • ♥Competitive teardown of two reference products in the space
  • ♥A three-phase product roadmap with prioritized features (Must, Should, Nice-to-have)
  • ♥The core data model for the platform
  • ♥The plan for the web product and its key user flows

Process

01

Competitive analysis

Studied two reference products in adjacent parts of the market to map what existed, where the gaps were, and which mechanics such as referral loops were worth adapting.

02

Defining the two-sided model

Framed the product around two personas, Hunters and Listers, and designed the loop that connects them: discovery, messaging, saved listings, decision.

03

Roadmap and prioritization

Sequenced everything into three phases tied to product maturity, validate then differentiate then scale, so the build stays lean early.

04

Data model

Defined the underlying schema so engineering had a concrete foundation to build against.

The core loop

Hunters browse and search listings, message Listers directly through in-app threads, and save listings to compare side by side. Listers create and manage listings and handle inbound interest from a single inbox. A dashboard gives each side a home base: Hunters track saved and messaged listings, Listers see active listings, their inbox, and visitor stats.

Discovery→Messaging→Saved listings→Decision

Roadmap at a glance

Phase 1

Foundation (MVP)

  • ♥Listing creation and search
  • ♥Hunter to Lister messaging threads
  • ♥Saved listings with side-by-side comparison
  • ♥Role-specific dashboards
  • ♥Intentionally minimal notifications: email plus an in-app badge count

Phase 2

Growth (Trust & Differentiation)

  • ♥Lifestyle compatibility score from a short quiz on sleep, cleanliness, pets, guests, and noise
  • ♥Two-sided reviews and ratings for Hunters and Listers
  • ♥Listing boost, the first revenue lever
  • ♥Neighborhood context: commute times, transit, walkability
  • ♥SEO and social sharing to turn every listing into a growth surface

Phase 3

Scale (Monetization & Platform)

  • ♥Premium tiers: Hunter Pro and Lister Pro
  • ♥AI powered For You matching on behavior, saved searches, and lifestyle fit
  • ♥Native mobile app after web product-market fit
  • ♥Background check integration as a trust differentiator
  • ♥Digital lease signing and in-app rent payments

Data model

The platform was structured around six core entities, enough to power the full MVP loop while leaving room for the trust and monetization layers to build on top.

usersprofileslistingsthreadsmessagessaves

Design principles

✦

Start lean, sequence by maturity

Every phase maps to a stage of validation, so effort is never spent ahead of proof.

✦

Trust is the product

Compatibility scoring, reviews, and background checks are the reason to choose Lok&Key over a classifieds board.

✦

Both sides matter

Every feature was pressure-tested against the needs of both Hunters and Listers to keep the marketplace balanced.

Outcome

The engagement produced a clear, prioritized roadmap and a defined product foundation that took Lok&Key from concept to a buildable plan, with a sequenced feature set, a data model ready for engineering, and a differentiation strategy centered on trust and compatibility.

Role: Product Strategy & Design. Deliverables: Competitive analysis, phased product roadmap, data model, web product plan.

Chart toppers

The numbers on repeat

100K+users reached
$2M+new revenue
30%+efficiency gains
4+years in product

Off the roadmap

What music taught me about building products

When I am not shipping features, I am listening, learning, and getting lost in music. It is more than a hobby, it is shaped how I think about rhythm, patience, and putting in the reps until something clicks.

Hardworking

Practice over talent. Great tracks and great products come from showing up every day, refining the details until they sing.

Resilient

Every song has a bridge, the hard part before the payoff. I have learned to push through the messy middle instead of skipping to the chorus.

Attuned to the audience

Music is empathy at scale. Reading a room is the same muscle as reading a user, you build for how people actually feel, not what a spec says.

Composed under pressure

Improv only looks effortless because of the hours behind it. I stay calm when the tempo picks up and adapt in real time.

The playlist behind the product

My rotation says as much about how I build as any roadmap.

Driven

Power ballads · Big vocals, bigger belief

Big, powerful, full of conviction. This is the energy for the days that ask everything of you. It is the reminder that showing up with belief is half of what moves a product, and a team, forward.

Empathetic

Indie confessionals · Small feelings, real people

Quiet, honest, deeply human songwriting. The best artists build a whole world out of small, real feelings, which is exactly how I think about users. The best products, like the best songs, come from paying attention to what people actually feel.

Disciplined

Classical fusion · Structure that sets you free

Progressive music built on classical foundations. Every improvisation sits on years of practice and structure. It is my favorite proof that creativity and rigor are not opposites, the freedom comes because of the discipline.

Visionary

Ambient synth-pop · Late-night future thinking

Music that pulls you somewhere bigger than the moment you are in. It is the headspace I go to when I am thinking past the next sprint, imagining what a product could become, not just what it is today.

Now Playing

A little bit of everything

On repeat, on shuffle, on discovery

Lo-fi focusClassic melodiesHigh-energyLive sessionsSoundtrack scoresDiscovery mode

The band

The toolkit behind the outcomes

Product & Strategy

Product Lifecycle ManagementRoadmappingGo-to-Market StrategyAgile / ScrumUX ResearchA/B TestingUAT

Technical Tools

MySQLMongoDBMixpanelHotjarGoogle AnalyticsTableauJIRASalesforceSendGridFigmaAirtableDrift

Business Operations

Cross-functional LeadershipStakeholder ManagementTechnical DocumentationProcurement SystemsBudget Planning & Analysis

Collaboration

SlackMicrosoft TeamsZoomTrelloMicrosoft Office Suite

Education

M.S. Project Management (STEM)

Northeastern University, Jan 2023 to Mar 2025

Education

B.E. Computer Science & Engineering

Amrita University, Jul 2015 to Jun 2019

Encore

Let's build something that moves the metric.

Always happy to talk product strategy, AI platforms, or growth experimentation.

Email

devikanamritaprabha@gmail.com

Phone

(857) 425-6661

LinkedIn

/in/devikan28

Get in touch ♥